Influence of exercise on visual search: implications for mediating cognitive mechanisms

The present study investigated the influence of exercise on a feature and conjunction search performed by 10 women and 8 men. We compared the effect of 10 min. of low- (65% work load) and high-exertion cycling (8 min. at 65% work load plus 2 min. at 85% work load) on response time, accuracy and response time as a function of the number of items in the display (slopes). Analysis showed faster search and increased slopes following exercise, suggesting that exercise improved performance especially under conditions of focused attention. The lowest response times followed high-exertion exercise, and most focused search, i.e., largest slopes, followed exercise of low-exertion.